Entries from September 2010 ↓

I painted this, with oil, from a framed Xerox of my face while in college.

I spent my 20s in a bit of angst. I had pretty decent reasons, boyfriends were all druggies with a tendency to knock me around, stalk me or be otherwise addicted psychotics and I tended to have overly-dramatic relationships with pretty much everyone. I think I believed that the more extreme emotions were more valid than less extreme feelings, like peace. Thank God I’ve changed that thinking.

Now, I wonder how much more fun it would have been to be one of those happy, go-getter sorority girls.

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This is Ainsley and her PawPaw showing off their new cell phones. He got the new iPhone 4 and she got a cool purple slider phone.

Yes, we got our nine-year-old daughter a cell phone.

My mother-in-law reminded me that I used to say things like, “I would never give a child a ______ ” on the assumption that cell phones were some potential evil form which might “spoil a child.” As if withholding joys, pleasures, and technology somehow makes a better human.

When you’re a new parent, you’re sometimes stupid. Coming from your experience in a way that assumes you know all there is to know about parenting and the future when they are born.

Then you grow.

You start to realize how convenient it would be to text your kid at the neighbors house, “come home, time for dinner” instead of calling the neighbor or going over. You start to realize how much easier it would be to keep track of where they are. You also realize it would be better for them to keep in touch with their grandparents, cousins, and friends without them touching your own new iPhone.

The rules are simple: keep it with you, don’t text me when you’re in the next room all day long, and we (parents) will look at your phone at any time, so don’t do or say anything you wouldn’t want your parents to know about.

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I’ve been excited to hear about the 100 women who claim authority as Catholic Priests in the United States, as in this Time article.

While there is evidence to suggest that women were equals and held authority in early Christianity, The Church – Catholic, Mormon, Protestant – have spent the last two thousand years eradicating femininity and authentic feminine godliness from its rituals and hierarchy.

It appears that it takes quite some time for women, who have been slaughtered throughout history for being “witches” if they believe in their own authentic spiritual power or exhibit any of God’s power and authority, to stick their toe out and reclaim this inherent authority.

Interestingly, while Rome is using the same verbiage against these Womenpriests – delictium gravius (grave crime) – as it used against the many pedophiliac priests, it is only excommunicating the women who claim God’s authority and not the “legitimate male priests” who abuse God’s authority and molest children. This, itself, is delictium gravius.

Time reports that 59% of U.S. Catholics favor ordaining women.

I’ve long thought that any church or religion with waning membership, especially among the younger population, should look first to its gender issues and its rules about authority. Perhaps there were generations of women who would do the heavy lifting of the church, yet be denied religious authority and spiritual powers, but these young women coming up in a world of increasing gender equality consider such policies delictium gravius.

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So, after my post Oprah Show Today, in which I declared that I might feel “seriously murderous” should someone stop recording Oprah accidentally, my local station preempted the Final Oprah Premier with tennis.